Getting into Foamies with my son

[sundown57]

Thought i would chime in and show my latest creation. I too am very new to rc flying. so far I bought the f pack for the motor and a flysky I6s for the transmitter. I built a couple SE5's so far and managed to crash them rather spectacularly. I found them very zippy and a bit hard to control so I built this one over the last couple rainy days. I bumped it up to 109% so it has a 31 inch wingspan and 24 inches tip to tail. it has been so windy the last few days i couldnt take it out but plan to see if it will even get off the ground with that much more weight, let alone fly good. As for the i6s I would love to see some start a thread just for posting how to use the darn things and what we learn as we go. there really are very few vidoes on them. and i hate asking all the time. i bought the 22 in one cable and it doesnt work , i boughtthe irangerx and cant get it to work. yeah id love an i6s thread.

 

[Wildthing]

Thought i would chime in and show my latest creation. I too am very new to rc flying. so far I bought the f pack for the motor and a flysky I6s for the transmitter. I built a couple SE5's so far and managed to crash them rather spectacularly. I found them very zippy and a bit hard to control so I built this one over the last couple rainy days. I bumped it up to 109% so it has a 31 inch wingspan and 24 inches tip to tail. it has been so windy the last few days i couldnt take it out but plan to see if it will even get off the ground with that much more weight, let alone fly good. As for the i6s I would love to see some start a thread just for posting how to use the darn things and what we learn as we go. there really are very few vidoes on them. and i hate asking all the time. i bought the 22 in one cable and it doesnt work , i boughtthe irangerx and cant get it to work. yeah id love an i6s thread.

Plane looks great, good luck on the next maiden. For the I6 start a thread yourself and ask your questions. All your answers will be in one spot then.

 

[Kendalf]

Finally both weather and availability coincided so that we could take our planes flying!

We first started with the Mini Scout, and my son buddy boxed with me using a cord I had jury-rigged to connect a TGY-i6S with my QX7. Worked pretty well, except that it was a bit too windy for the mini. Still good to give him some more stick time, and the trainer mode allowed me to save the plane from a few potentially severe crashes!

Next, we gave the FT Sportster it's maiden flight! I was definitely a bit more nervous putting this one in the air, as it's the biggest and heaviest plane we've built. But it flew well! It was definitely harder to launch than the Mini, but once it gained some altitude it tracked well and certainly handled the wind much better! Here's the maiden flight video. We even attracted the attention of several kids that were playing in the park!

I let it get a little too slow on the landing and it did a wingtip stall from about three feet above the ground. I also should have dropped the flaps; it's amazing how slow this bird can go! But no real damage, and after checking battery voltage we threw it up for another flight. This time, my son asked, "How fast does it go?" So I gave it max throttle. Unfortunately, about two seconds later we heard a "POP" and watched as the prop flew off one way while the plane continued the other. Thankfully, I had enough altitude that I was able to bring it in for a dead-stick landing with very minimal damage to the wing when it tip stalled again close to the ground. The rudder control horn also needs to be glued back in, but just a bit of glue and it will be ready to fly again! Wish we had kept the camera rolling for this second flight!

Apparently the entire prop collet flew off the motor shaft. My son was able to recover the prop and adapter. I'm curious if there is some trick to keeping the collet tight; I thought I had tightened down the prop pretty good on the adapter, but apparently not tight enough.

 

[Kendalf]

Details on the electronics used for the Sportster:
Turnigy D2830-11 1000kV motor
Hobbywing FlyFun 30A ESC
Zippy 3s 2200 mAh LiPo battery
HobbyKing HKSCM9-6 9g digital servos for ailerons/flaperons
Turnigy TG9z 9g analog servos for elevator and rudder
FrSky V8R7-ii Receiver
FrSky Taranis Q X7 Radio
10x4.7 "Slow-fly" prop

don't give up on the i6s it functions really well and you can program mostly what you need!

Yes, the i6s is serving well as a buddy box for my son while he's learning, and he will likely use it to fly his own planes solo when the time comes. The nice thing about an OpenTX radio is that I can set the channel order for trainer mode to match whatever transmitter I connect to. I was unable to buddy box the i6S to an older Spektrum DX6i I had because the Spektrum uses TAER while Flysky uses AETR.

 

[bracesport]

@Kendalf - please share your trainer cord mod!

I need to use an i6 as the master and i6s as the slave (i6 has a trainer option), but as you know the i6s does not - any ideas?

love the sportster - I need to build one!

 

[buzzbomb]

Finally both weather and availability coincided so that we could take our planes flying!
View attachment 126748
View attachment 126750
We first started with the Mini Scout, and my son buddy boxed with me using a cord I had jury-rigged to connect a TGY-i6S with my QX7. Worked pretty well, except that it was a bit too windy for the mini. Still good to give him some more stick time, and the trainer mode allowed me to save the plane from a few potentially severe crashes!

Next, we gave the FT Sportster it's maiden flight! I was definitely a bit more nervous putting this one in the air, as it's the biggest and heaviest plane we've built. But it flew well! It was definitely harder to launch than the Mini, but once it gained some altitude it tracked well and certainly handled the wind much better! Here's the maiden flight video. We even attracted the attention of several kids that were playing in the park!

I let it get a little too slow on the landing and it did a wingtip stall from about three feet above the ground. I also should have dropped the flaps; it's amazing how slow this bird can go! But no real damage, and after checking battery voltage we threw it up for another flight. This time, my son asked, "How fast does it go?" So I gave it max throttle. Unfortunately, about two seconds later we heard a "POP" and watched as the prop flew off one way while the plane continued the other. Thankfully, I had enough altitude that I was able to bring it in for a dead-stick landing with very minimal damage to the wing when it tip stalled again close to the ground. The rudder control horn also needs to be glued back in, but just a bit of glue and it will be ready to fly again! Wish we had kept the camera rolling for this second flight!

Apparently the entire prop collet flew off the motor shaft. My son was able to recover the prop and adapter. I'm curious if there is some trick to keeping the collet tight; I thought I had tightened down the prop pretty good on the adapter, but apparently not tight enough.
View attachment 126755

Thank you for that. I had a really hard night at work and you made it all better with that video. Your sportster looks really good in the air. Your skin design really made orientating the plane a breeze. I also love how engaged your son is in the flight. Kids all around and he stayed right on that plane with the camera. Good job, Camera Man!

I'm afraid I can not help with the collet issue. I have not used a motor that uses them. I hope someone else is able to offer some insight.

 

[mayan]

First off thumbs up to the camera man keep the good work. Staying on a fast flying plane with a camera is hard and you did a great job boy .

Second that flight was beautiful like always. Happy you attracted some attention that’s fun but brings in some stress to it all. I must mention though that the girls in the background sort of gave me a headache I guesss that’s how small girls are...

What’s next on your build list?

 

[daxian]

great flight with the sportster...and your son is a really good cameraman !!!
built mine a good while back and messed up with using covering film ...so a little worried about flying it.. you have given me incentive to give it a try ,soon as the weather improves here in the uk ...

 

[FDS]

That looked great! Mine flew nearly as well as that, I too have nailed it landing. Those big planes are intimidating to get up and down for sure.
I don’t like those style of prop mounts, especially on larger props. I prefer a motor with a proper threaded set up. Might be something to consider as an upgrade for the Sportster now it’s survived its first flight.
Your son is doing a great job on the camera.

 

[mayan]

I built a scaled down sportster in the past have it hanging in the kids room. Hit my head on the landing gear every time and still don’t take it off .

 

[Kendalf]

@Kendalf - please share your trainer cord mod!

I need to use an i6 as the master and i6s as the slave (i6 has a trainer option), but as you know the i6s does not - any ideas?

Here's my cable. Basically a DIN-4 head (same as a S-video connector) connected to a mono 3.5mm jack. The DIN-4 end connects to the i6s while the audio jack goes into the QX7.


I used this video as a reference but had to figure out how to solder the specific wires for the specific 3.5mm jack that I had (it wasn't a standard audio cable). An ohmmeter to test for continuity is invaluable here.

It looks like the i6 has the same DIN-4 port as the i6S, so the easiest solution would be if you can find a S-video cable laying around. However, you'll need to cut the cable and resolder the wires in a different order so that the pins line up correctly between trainer and student radios. See this post for details on that: https://forum.flitetest.com/index.p...ner-student-mode-buddy-box.35605/#post-354600

 

[Kendalf]

First off thumbs up to the camera man keep the good work. Staying on a fast flying plane with a camera is hard and you did a great job boy .

What’s next on your build list?

I'll let my son know, thanks!

For our next build, I would really like to try a warbird. Maybe the FT Spitfire, or perhaps @Grifflyer's mini P-39, which is a plane that I really like. But I also like Miniacrc's P-40, especially with Rasterize's skins for it! At some point, we might just build them all!

 

[Paracodespoder]

I'll let my son know, thanks!

For our next build, I would really like to try a warbird. Maybe the FT Spitfire, or perhaps @Grifflyer's mini P-39, which is a plane that I really like. But I also like Miniacrc's P-40, especially with Rasterize's skins for it! At some point, we might just build them all!

Build Griff's p-39, then go build @nerdnic 's p-39 with a 2205 and get some serious speed .

 

[mayan]

You can always convert your TT into a SpiTTT, which is a mashup between a TT and Spitfire.

 

[bracesport]

@Kendalf - thanks for the advice on the trainer cable - I have an s-video cable and indeed that did not work, so I will research your links for the wiring tweak - all report back!

@Kendalf - possibly you have a 3.2mm collet on a 3mm motor shaft - it fits but maybe it is not a perfect match?

 

[bracesport]

@Kendalf - I also have a JR x378 with a mono jack for the trainer port - I will try and build a cable like yours to master to the i6s (as the slave - is your i6s set to PPM?)

I watched your video reference link and in that video, the two ground pins were connected together (image 1)

Can I ask you about which pins you used between the s video and mono jack

(I found a couple of references shown below - did you mess with the s video end to join the pins marked with the yellow arrows or simply like the third image?)

 

[Kendalf]

Can I ask you about which pins you used between the s video and mono jack

(I found a couple of references shown below - did you mess with the s video end to join the pins marked with the yellow arrows or simply like the third image?)

View attachment 126924
So in the picture you posted here, I connected the pin indicated by the cyan arrows (labelled "Control Signal") to the tip of the 3.5mm plug, and then the ring of the cable (ground) connected to the base of the plug. Mine was a mono cable, but I suppose if you have a stereo cable you can connect ground to the two lower parts of the barrel, like what you see in this picture (note picture orientation is upside down relative to your picture):

I did NOT connect any of the other pins, as I did not want to risk passing a current from one radio to another. So with my cable the trainer radio must be powered on with its own battery; it will not be powered up by the instructor radio.

You know what was the hardest thing about doing this? All the mental gymnastics to correctly correlate the pictures showing the port vs the cable, and right side up vs upside down!

 

[bracesport]

@Kendalf - thank you so much - all makes sense now. I will report back in time!

Oh, is your i6s on PPM?
and, when you chopped into the SV cable, was there a wire connected to the ground sheath to tap onto?

I hope my JR will function like your QX7!

(sorry for all the questions! I have also been gathering i6s info on another thread so I'll post all this there too).

 

[Kendalf]

Yup, i6s set to PPM. My s-video cable didn't have a ground wire per se; rather it was a sheath of wires around the outside, just under the outer insulation. I had to twist it up into a wire stand before soldering. Not pretty, but it worked!

 

[bracesport]

@Kendalf - got it I am in your debt!